Middletown Delivers

Posted by Nick Martinez in Performing Arts, Reviews

Middletown, the latest SFUAD Performing Arts Department production, opens with Curtis Williams’ Public Speaker waxing philosophic about the nature of small towns. It’s a fun digression that captures the high energy and inherent sadness of the mostly plot-less but emotionally poignant show that follows.

The play has an ensemble cast, but there are a few characters given the most time to shine, including: Mathew Eldridge’s John Dodge; Porscha Shaw’s Mary Swanson; Michael Phillip Thomas’s Cop; and Jade Lewis’s Mechanic. Eldridge and Shaw did a phenomenal job carrying the emotional weight for much of the play.

Due to the structure of the play, many of the actors had the difficult job of taking what could easily be one-note characters and adding pathos. It seems lazy to make such a blanket statement, but the whole cast was really up to the challenge. Not every joke landed, and not every character left the same impression, but the batting average is so high, it is easy to brush off the shortcomings.

Maia Rychlik’s Librarian and Yusef Seevers’s Doctor, in particular, breathed such life into simple characters that leave one combing through all of their dialogue for hidden meaning long after you leave Greer Garson Theatre.

The two scenes that stood out most were the scene in space and Lewis’s scene with Tallis Geohegan-Freifeld’s Doctor. The scene in space, featuring Matt McMillan and Robert Henkel Jr. is nestled towards the end of Act One. The scene is by far the most removed from the plot, but is the first point where the themes are front and center. McMillan and Henkel Jr.’s subtle performance prevents the message from being overbearing. Chelsea Kuehnel’s sets are also a delight in their simplicity, giving the space scene a magical feel and the dusty town the sense of isolation it deserves. The wire posts in the background’s Christian imagery serve as a nice question mark on many of the show’s themes.

Freifeld and Lewis’s scene together was one of the first with genuine heartbreak. Freifeld’s performance in particular, having been introduced to her only a scene before, was outstanding in her ability to run the gamut of frustration to basic empathy in such a short but believable amount of time.

Middletown’s heavy themes can sometimes feel cumbersome, but in the end, it is an expertly acted meditation on the shared loneliness of middle America.

Middletown continues Oct. 11-13, with 7 pm shows on Friday and Saturday; 2 pm matinees on Sunday.